*BSD News Article 73496


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!news-res.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.ac.net!news.bconnex.net!news.abs.net!cs.umd.edu!info.usuhs.mil!hq.hq.af.mil!news
From: sgregory@pubspo.hq.af.mil (Scott Gregory)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Mail......What does this mean??
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 16:53:20 GMT
Organization: Departmental Publishing
Lines: 21
Message-ID: <31e6811d.21963902@news.hq.af.mil>
NNTP-Posting-Host: sgregory.hq.af.mil
X-Newsreader: Forte Agent .99d/32.182

Three lines like this (names have been changed to protect the guilty
:-) ) appeared in my /var/log/maillog.

Jul 12 10:38:43 my.sys.name sendmail[17654]:  foo.bar
[123.123.123.123]: vrfy lhammer

Each entry had a different last word (I assume this is a username?).

What does this mean??  I know date, time, sys name, log entry,
offending system, translated address, but what are they doing with
"vrfy lhammer"

Is this a security concern??  I'm STILL new at this so please explain
in detail.

Thanks,

C-ya

Scott